Watch Oprah Winfrey's First 1983 Audition Tape

Published 5:20 pm, Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Before Oprah Winfrey became the $2.9 billion media mogul she is today, the TV personality started her career in local news.

Oprah recently explained her career trajectory, saying, "There have always been patterns in my life — whenever I feel like I've grown enough in one place, I move on."

"I felt that I had grown enough in Nashville ...

... so I moved on to Baltimore."

"I became the co-host of a morning show called 'People Are Talking' and then one day I heard that there was a morning show in Chicago that needed a new host.""So I stayed up all night long with an editor, because I wasn't one of those people who was prepared and keeping track of all my stories. So I sent my tape in and I was obsessed with getting this job. Somehow, after all these years, my staff hunted down my original audition tape."

Watch the short audition video below, in which the future media mogul reveals where her name comes from:

Within a few months, "AM Chicago" trumped Phil Donahue’s show to become the highest-rated talk show in Chicago.

In 1986 it was renamed "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and was broadcast nationally. The rest is history.